Ian Wright: I nearly ruined
career smoking marijuana
before Palace game....
Arsenal legend Ian Wright has revealed he put
his career in jeopardy by smoking marijuana
the day before playing a match for Crystal
Palace.
Wright, who played for Palace between 1985
and 1991, says he feared for his career when
drug testers turned up after a game against
West Bromwich Albion shortly after his 21st
birthday.
"I'd been smoking weed since I was about 17,
not in a smoke-myself-into-uselessness type
of way and I wasn't worried about becoming an
addict," Wright writes in his new book, "A Life in
Football: My Autobiography," which is being
serialised in The Sun.
"I'd been around weed smokers from a very
early age, and recently it had become
something of an end-of-the-week ritual. It
didn't even dawn on me that I was doing
anything wrong.
"We beat West Brom 4-1 that Saturday, the
whole team came into the dressing room still
excited and then the drug testers arrived.
"It's the first time I'd ever seen them and I
panicked inside -- I've been smoking cannabis,
less than 24 hours earlier, and if that test
comes back positive that's it. It is literally all
over for me.
"I'm practically paralysed while trying to act
unconcerned. The guy says: 'Drug test, No. 9.'
Mark Bright. I'm sure he's going to call my
number next, No. 10. He calls, 'Drug test, No.
11.' Phil Barber. I sit down -- more or less
collapse -- and think, 'Somebody's looking out
for me, now I know it!'"
Wright says the near miss was a moment of
realisation for him and that he stopped
smoking marijuana from that point on.
"What hit me the most is how much I would
have been letting people from my area down,"
Wright wrote.
"If I had got caught on that drugs test it would
have been beyond them, they just wouldn't
have understood it: 'What?! You got into
Crystal Palace and you didn't stop smoking
weed?'
"From that day to this I never smoked a spliff
again."